This is the first step in our endeavor to fractal the worldviews of the cultures of your world. In this step we’re going to look at some of your culture’s essential views about reality. Now admittedly, some of these things might technically lean more towards the “beliefs” side of things, but I’m kinda winging it here
So, lets take a look at how your culture views reality.
Ok, so I dove right in, looking at questions to ask yourself, and now I’m popping back up here to give you a before-you-start warning. This is a very outside-looking-in perspective, meaning the things you’ll see as you look at your world’s cultures’ worldviews are things that the members of your culture would not be consciously aware of. Your worldview is a very instinctive part of your culture that you wouldn’t be able to just verbalize in as analytical a matter as we’re doing here. So, don’t go overboard on this step. This is just an exercise to help you mull over some of the unconscious, driving views of your culture.
- How does your culture view the substance of reality? *sees the blank expressions* Ok, let’s unpack that a little. Best way to start is with examples. To the Greek philosophers in the 1st century, the spiritual realm of the soul was reality and the physical world was the tainted illusion that our souls escape in death to rejoin the spiritual realm. In the worldview of Eastern mysticism, the physical world is also viewed as an illusion. The Western worldview, however sees the physical world as reality with little or no emphasis on spiritual realities. Western Christianity for the most part (i.e. - average Christian that you meet on the street) acknowledges both the physical and spiritual realities, but tends to see them as separate. Tribal animistic religions around the world accept the reality of both the physical and the spiritual and believes that the spiritual reality has very real impact on and involvement with the physical reality. Ecclesiastes3:11 says that God set eternity in men’s hearts, and though we could sit around for years discussing the details of what exactly that means, it’s evident that all people have an instinctive understanding that the physical world is not the breadth of reality, even if in our fallen state we try to stifle that instinct. It would be logical to assume that the same is true of the peoples in your world. So how does the culture-in-question translate that instinct?
- Does your culture acknowledge the spiritual reality?Most major worldviews until the Advent of Modern Science acknowledged the Spiritual reality. Atheism and Naturalism are fairly young worldviews as far as the world is concerned.
- Does your culture see the physical world as real?
- If your culture acknowledges both as “real,” then how does it view the nature of the two realities? Antagonistic (similar to Greek view, in which the physical tainted and trapped the pure spirits of people and they could only escape upon death)? Symbiotic? Separate (Western view)? Inter-dependent?
- If your culture acknowledges both realities, does it view one as stronger or having more influence than the other? I.e. does the spiritual influence the physical without being influenced itself or vice versa? Or does your culture view them as equally influencing each other?
- Does your culture view one reality as “fairer” or “better” than the other? Technically, this could fall under “Values,” but as it applies to reality, I decided to put it here.
- What means does your culture deem valid for discerning reality/truth? I think this one is fairly self-explanatory in comparison to the last one. Basically, how does your culture answer the philosophical question: “How do we know what’s real?”
- To what degree are the physical senses considered valid for perceiving reality?If your culture views the physical world as illusory/not-real, then very little faith would be placed in the physical senses. Whereas if your culture views the physical reality as the dominant/sole reality, then great faith would be placed in the physical senses.
- Does your culture hold that the spiritual reality can be perceived by the physical senses? To what degree? On what occasions? This one is really better handled in detail under the “Belief” section, so I’m only touching on it lightly here.
- Are emotions viewed as valid means of perceiving/interpreting reality? To what degree?
- Are reason and logic viewed as valid means of evaluating and appraising reality?
- Are instinct and intuition considered valid means of perceiving reality? To what degree?
- Does your culture accept the existence of some other non-physical sense through which reality can be perceived? How does this “sixth sense” differ from instinct and intuition?
- How does your culture view the nature of time?
- Does your culture view time as linear (Western & Christian view) or as cyclical (Hinduism,Buddhism, and Eastern mysticism)?
- Does your culture view reality as progressing, decaying, cycling, or remaining the same?
So there we have it, DCulFS Phase 1 Step 1! There are a lot more philosophical questions of a similar nature that we could ask, but I think the ones here are enough to get a basic feel for the heart of your culture’s perception of reality. This whole Phase, as I said, is one that we ourselves would have trouble verbalizing about our own cultures, so maybe instead of answering these questions, you can just mull them over and get a “feeling” for your culture’s heart. If that works for you, then it would be 100 times more productive than answering every single question in deep philosophical detail but not having a feel for your culture’s viewpoint. The next step will look at your culture views humanity…kinda
Stage 1 is Worldview. Once I finish all the steps in it, I'm going to archive the smaller posts and then post them all in one post.
